The next major release for WordPress (Version 5) is just around the corner. Probably the biggest change is the editing experience with Gutenberg – the new WYSIWYG Editor. Beside that there is also a new theme available and some other improvements, especially in regards to the Rest API.
Whats New
As already mentioned, the biggest change is the new editor which has been under development for around 2 years and which was already available as a plugin and with 5.0 has now merged into the core. Gutenberg offers a online editing experience as already seen with popular pagebuilder plugins such as Visual Composer, Divi, Elementor and so on. You can drag and drop so-called “blocks” which contains specific kind of informations and therefore you have more possibilities to create unique looking posts, pages and more.
Beside that there will be also a new Standard Theme included: “Twenty Nineteen” which fully supports the new Gutenberg Editor.
And on top of that there are even more things which have been changed, fixed and improved. If you want to know more about all of that you perhaps want to checkout this article which offers a great overview about everything whats new.
Compatibility with WPCasa
Since you maybe already heard about all those changes mentioned above, you most likely now want to know if WPCasa is compatible with WordPress 5.0 and especially the Gutenberg Editor.
And as much as we’ve tested, we haven’t found any major compatibility issues with any of our themes or plugins. We found a few minor issues which we’re going to address within the next few days, but there is nothing which would cause a major outage.
However, Gutenberg won’t be available for the Listings Post Type by default and this is actually good since WPCasa currently follows a metafield-approach for entering data (price, details,…) and a widget/shortcode-based approach for displaying that data (at least in our themes). That being said, while Gutenberg will mature within the next few months, we will for sure also try to leverage the power of Gutenberg to offer more customization options for your listing presentation.
Should you update?
Of course this decision is fully up to you. In general said, when WordPress releases a new version you can be rest-assured that it has been throughly tested by thousands of users and developers BUT of course there is always the case which is not foreseeable, and since WPCasa is basically a business tool empowering business websites, we would suggest you to perhaps wait a little before you go and hit the update button. Make sure you have enough time for this process and fully back up your whole website (incl. files and database). Ensure that all important plugins are compatible with WordPress 5.0 to avoid any bad surprises.
Yoast has also put together a very informative article about if and how you should proceed with that update.
Final Words
We’re really looking forward to this improvment and how this will change the world of WordPress in general. We’re sure that Gutenberg will mature within the next few months and we’re looking forward to all the various kind of blocks becoming available in order to offer even more customization options with a few clicks.
In case you have any more questions about that feel free to get in touch with us